Three babies and three stories you will never forget

Baby Lewis arrived

This week we received our 250^th baby. How did that happen? 250 children have been placed with us by the Social Welfare department of the Kingdom of Eswatini and we are here to love them back to life and then raise them to be the future of this nation. 

At times it is overwhelming, but being overwhelmed doesn’t help save lives, so we just have to put our heads down and get to work.

Baby Lewis (#250) arrived on Thursday and I was so busy I didn’t get a chance to post his arrival, and then yesterday we got a call about another child in desperate need, so today I will share their stories with you as we celebrate their lives.  I hope you will never forget these children.

Baby Lewis is 2-months-old and came to us from a very sad situation, with both mother and father being mentally disabled.  My friend Eileen (Lewis) Habelow went with me up the mountain to the homestead with the Social Welfare officer and found the baby (who had been left alone at home for hours) lying in a pool of his own urine and feces, hungry and screaming.  We quickly got him out of his soaked clothing, gave him a nice warm bottle and soon he was cooing in my arms. 

We got home and gave thanks for this little guy and then suddenly realized that he was baby #250!  We needed to celebrate!  I called Lisa in our US office and asked her to pull together a graphic that celebrated our 250^th child arriving.  But before I could get the image posted, another child arrived.

Baby Asande arrived yesterday. Burned and hurting.  His mother abandoned him with a woman who is completely blind. She became blind after her husband beat her badly because she couldn’t give him a child, causing a serious injury to her head causing the blindness.  That same man is the father to Asande (from another woman), and he told his wife he would kill her if she didn’t’ care for the baby.  Earlier this week she accidently spilled boiling water on the boy, burning his torso and arm very badly.   Social welfare had been involved with this case for many months, but this time intervened and removed the child to save his life and placed him with us. He will turn 2-years-old this month, and arrived just under our 2-year-old cut off AND gets his very first birthday cake.  Another tragic situation that will turn to triumph. 

On Monday we received a little girl whom we are calling Tilly. She is 11-months-old and is absolutely terrified of adults. For days she has been inconsolable and we assumed it was a combination of coming down from alcohol addiction (her mother is an alcoholic and was nursing her), and severe physical abuse (her mother tried to strangle and kill her last weekend).  But we have since learned that this baby was being raised by children, and adults only hurt her when they were around. We discovered this when one of our Aunties took her out to see the toddlers, trying to get her to stop crying one day.  She immediately calmed down and looked around for a face that she knew. She saw our 2-year-old Mollie and tried to get on Mollie’s back to be carried. What a heartbreaking sight for everyone to see.  Slowly she is starting to trust the “big people” around her, and yesterday Ian was even able to hold her for a moment before she screamed, but it was progress indeed.  We do think that it was women who abused her most.

Some days are harder than others, but when I think I am having a bad day, all I have to do is think about any of these three children and I see how blessed I am and that God has called me to be a part of their lives. 

If you have read this far, I am asking you to consider making a one-time gift in celebration of our 250^th (and 251^st) child.  Would you give $25?  $250 $2,500 or maybe even $25,000 to help us be able to save the next child who is burned, broken or abandoned?  We are willing to do the heavy lifting here, but can’t do it without an ever-growing family of supporters around the world.  Also, please share this blog with friends and family and on your social media platforms. Help us get the word out that there are children in Eswatini who desperately need help. 

In the US please click here.

 

In Canada please click here.

Thank you for praying for us and with us.  It takes a village to raise a child, and a really large village to raise 251+. 

Live from Eswatini … I am going to see my three new little ones.

Janine